How To Get Clean Eggs From Your Laying Hens | Joel Salatin
How you manage your laying hens directly effects how much egg washing you have to do. Joel Salatin provides some tips from how Polyface Farms keeps their chicken eggs clean from the start.
Considering starting your own farm or homestead?
At FarmLikeALunatic.com, Lunatic farmer Joel Salatin shares the insight he's gained through more than 60 years of farming. He'll walk you step-by-step through the process of setting up and running your own successful egg operation.
If you’ve ever dreamed about generating a full-time income farming, this is a realistic and practical opportunity. We want to help you avoid common pitfalls and achieve success.
The Pastured Laying Hens course includes:
25 video sessions
More than 5 hours of video
Downloadable PDF transcripts for each video lesson
Homework PDFs for each lesson that guide you through the essential steps
Expert insight from an award-winning farmer
Visit farmlikealunatic.com/p/pastur... and purchase the course on laying hens or purchase all current and future courses!
Joel says the key point : “to express chicken-ness.” This has been the key to success for raising any animal I’ve tried. Forcing animals to fit into trendy ideas or routines that don’t fit them is like setting up tripwires and traps before you even started your endeavor.
And changing everything seems to be the tone of society these days. Sad...
Chickenness! I love you regard it as important--not only just from a practical viewpoint--that the hen gets to "express" her instincts, her nature in arranging her straw. If we honor the built-in design of natural things, we are honored. lovely, and great tips, thanks!
That was my favorite part of the video!
I learned a lot from you in one short video! Thanks!
Yes chickenness! They are their own thing. We love them too.
Phenotypical physiological desires. Awesome! ❤🐓
I really appreciate your understanding of what makes these birds so special: as you said, the goal should be to allow the hens to fully express their chickenness. So many poultry farmers get into the mentality of treating chickens like a machine, when it’s so important to recognize the small desires that make all the difference.
Chickens are special creatures, for sure! Thanks for watching
Freedom to fully express their CHICKEN-NESS❤😂 Funny but spot on sir. Best philosophy i have seen on youtube. Greatly agree...looking forward to building my flock with freedom and authentic systems that benefit both my girls and me. Subscribing! God bless you!
“Chickenness” lol 😂. That’s so cute! Thank you for the great info.
Absolutely, thanks for watching!
This past winter, I had the most trouble I’ve ever had with dirty eggs. It was an extremely muddy winter. I was cleaning eggs every single day. Thank God things are finally dried out a little bit now, but I am going to be making some changes to par of my chicken run, so I did not have another winter like this one.
Yes! Muddy chicken feet is a big issue for me living in the Pacific Northwest.
! Genius INSIGHT ! SUBLIME OBSERVATIONS ! Profound WISDOM ! Well done.... ! THANKS GRATEFULLY...!
Chicken Ness! brilliant! Nice coop BTW Joel!
That’s SO good to hear about the “junky” hay/nesting material because recently all this hype around these herbal nesting additives has everyone saying how great they are etc, but the stuff is expensive and I’m not interested in the girls sleeping in there or being happy about hanging out in the nesting boxes…
Thank you, I appreciate the information.
Thanks for the comment, hope it's useful!
Great tips, Thank you! We are just about to start building our first chicken coop and run, and those were things I had never thought about, so I really appreciate you sharing your wisdom. God bless you.
Best of luck with your hens!
Ditto #Chickenness
So great ideas a bout eggs .i like farms .thank you .
Thanks for this video. I need to raise my boxes and build the pearch so it closes. No more poopy eggs!😂
Good luck!
Rain days are tough when the girls are out mud buggin all day and hit the nest box with mud up to their armpits.
What a great video, chocked full of information. Thank you! I learned so much so quickly.
Joel freakin Salatin has a KZhead? And, he has less than 4k subs? The world is topsy-turvy.
I think there is a Polyface Farms channel, so this might be a new channel
Excellent tips!!! (or should I say Eggsellent tips).
Hehe 🥚 😊
Thank you Mr. Salatin. Excellent information delivered efficiently and clearly, perfect content.
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks Joel! You make it easy to explain to my momma. 😊
No way?! Is that Lauren collecting eggs? She was such a fun, welcoming presence when I got the pleasure of meeting her during a working interview years ago!
wow the guy really knows his chickens.
Thank you, it's taken a lot of years of trial and error to really get this stuff down
This is so helpful and awesome! Thank you! 🎉❤🎉
This is a very helpful video. Small steps that save big amounts of time and aggravation.
Well thought out !
Thank you! Blessings
LOVE THESE SHORT CLIPS THAT ARE PACKED WITH GREAT INFO. Joel you never cease to amaze! Come visit us at WeTheFullers Farm in MO! We’re just a small, but growing farm. City folks finding solutions to our farm problems is our specialty. Some solutions take longer than others, but we eventually get there.
Thanks so much for watching!
Thank you! Joel doin Joel..
Just trying to help people out! Thanks for watching
Expressing his Joelness 😊
Wonderful insight! Thank You!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you very much!
I learn from you dear brother 🙏 nice knowledge i should know it 🙏 thank you so much dear friend
What breeds of chickens 🐓 do you use for egg production ?
So helpful! Thx
Thank you
That’s a nice hat!
Did you purchase this one or build it? If purchase can you please link for us. Thank you for the video
Very interesting. Someday I'd like to have a few chickens, so, I'm always open to tidbits if information.
wow ! very good ,
nice, thank you
GRT info.thnx
That’s surprisingly convenient, that they’re attracted to shadowed places when laying an egg.
Thanks!
No problem!
New subscriber
Great tip and I don’t even have chickens but I passed it on to three of my friends who do. My reason is because they do have poopy eggs 😂
We plan to use curtains on each nesting box, hoping it helps with a few of the problems mentioned. Thank you fo passing on your knowledge and experience, much appreciated.
Joel can you do a video on Avian flu? My worry is it’s over-dramaticized to control us like Covid.
Thanks for the suggestion, we’ll consider it!
Yes you are right . Trying to do the same thing with the cows. Killing off our food supply.
@@farmlikealunatic avian flu seems like a convenient way to get rid of pastured poultry 🤔
You want to prevent avian flu put antibiotics in thier water plain and simple they dont affect the eggs or the meat
@@farmlikealunaticplease consider it a few times if the first consideration is no.
I think one of my chickens has visual problems. In the evening when everyone goes into the coop (I have a coop and a run situation and the nesting boxes are attached to the coop for reference), she can't seem to see to get on to the roosting bar like everybody else so she goes to a nesting box. When we go out to close the door, we bring a flashlight and shine it up at the roosting bar. Then she leaves the nesting box and jumps up to the roosting bar. We found her calling card That's how we found out lol
Nooice! 😎 STOC
Regarding some of the automatic systems, which close the nesting boxes off during the evening time. Raising the roost bar as a barrier to entry to the nesting box. Any experience in whether these systems actually can trap a chicken in the box overnight.
Justin rhodes should watch this
Great informative video! What are the dimensions of your nesting boxes?
The standard size for these types of nesting boxes are around 7” x 11.5”. Somewhere around 12x12 is standard - but keep mind your hens will share nests - typically around 10 per next box is good.
@@farmlikealunatic Thank You for the reply!
5gallon buckets work fine & they love them to lay in only 1 dirty egg in a year of over a dozen hens laying daily lol. Not to mention I had 14 lay boxes 5 different styles & they chose the 5gallon buckets why would you say it’s not efficient if that’s what they choose & love?
Because of the increased probability for people not in your exact circumstances to regularly have filthy eggs. There are factors you are not considering and you are the outlier.
@@towzone I may not be right, but I’m not wrong. It’s pretty simple. Put a 5 gallon bucket in there and they will lay in the bucket not in their poop.. 🤯
What do you open netting boxes? The morning? What time span?
Where do i get those hinges? Are those homemade?
Key 🗝️
LOL Mine for fine and I have only three and than all of a sudden, dirty with one! LOL I didn't know this!
I have so many nests in my coop, yet they fight over 3 specific ones. Not always the same 3. But they end up breaking the eggs! I have boxes like yours and collect the eggs around noon, then a few stragglers before supper. They're all bedded the same, same amount of darkness. I kind of wonder if I have an egg eater in there, too. Any suggestions?
How many hens will that size of coop service?
I had this nailed down until I converted a shed into a new coop, and they keep laying eggs in the corners under their roost in the pile of poop from the night before. 😅 I bought a nice nest box with the rollaway feature, but they nope'd out of it. The best solution is letting them free range the back yard in the morning and they b-line for the back steps to my house. The eggs they lay under there are almost always clean there but a pain to get to despite being right by the back door. Ah well, we'll get it sorted...eventually.
Definitely! If I can get eggs laid in the box, can I get it them scrambled, too?
Easiest way to solve dirty eggs don’t have the nests in the coop solved
Is there an automatic door for nesting boxes if your not able to go out and open it early in the morning ???
Yes, there are! There are several great automatic chicken doors out there, in fact Polyface has some solar powered doors on their eggmobile.
Oookay! I wondered why people put nests up so high! I can vouch, chickens will scratch ALL of the straw out if they're bored and can see in the nest, and if it tastes good. Oops! Same for eggs you're trying to hatch. I just lost an entire clutch of eggs, probably because they were so dirty. Which is why I'm here.
What it you want brooding Chickens? We want some of our hens to raise more chickens naturally. Therefore they need access to the nesting boxes at all times.
I'm absolutely shocked that Joel would call straw "hay".
Wash them?
❤❤❤🕊️
How do you not lose chickens to predators in a setup like that ?
Oh my eggs get dirty because my chickens feet get dirty but I'm in the middle of a new pen so they won't be dirty but I was mine with a small brush and use a dottera oil cleaner to sanitize them and rinse let dry but we have to build our boxes yet I have 17 chickens I'm thinking 4 boxes they always share space to lay
I would suggest closer to 10 boxes if you don't want broken eggs. Would also help for cleaner eggs.
My chicken lays eggs in the windshield of the car... No hay, no straw, no box, no jump, no manure, just an egg every other morning on my car. Explain that!
Your chicken has issues.
Mine kick the straw or wood chips outta the boxes...
This is pretty common. Using older straw with less grains (food) does help limit that, but they are chickens so it's going to happen!
@farmlikealunatic_joelsalatin I have used coconut coir, straw, and pine shavings they toss it out or dig thru it to wood bottom of nests, lol
chickeness
Are chickens supposed to live in jungles?
Chickens shouldn't be exposed to anything moldy. That is so bad for their lungs! Use clean straw as there aren't many seed heads in straw.
It may be that chickens that don't get to express thier "chicken-ness” through foraging but are cooped up 24-7 have problems with thier lungs when moldy straw is in thier nests but all my life my hens have roamed and foraged through moldy hay, moldy leaves, decomposing food scraps and moldy straw for bugs, and good things to eat... they have always been healthy, beautiful, full feathered, long living, happy healthy bird's. I also use the oldest dry straw for thier nests and they have never had any issues.
Wash them and move on with your life!
Try that with thousand of eggs 😂
No, the egg shells has important anti-bacterial coating that gets removed with washing. Best is to know how to have clean eggs to start with. By using the data here.
The country is going to hell ! Im not worried about eggs
You don't need to wash eggs.